The Phoenicians lived in a region at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea that was is now known as Palestine. It became the home of the Hebrews and.

• The Phoenicians lived in a region at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea that was is now known as Palestine.

• It became the home of the Hebrews and they referred it to it as Canaan.

• Ancient Palestine’s location made it a cultural crossroads of the ancient world.

• To the east, there was Assyria and Babylonia

• To the west, there was Egypt.

• The Hebrews settled Canaan, it was between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea

• Let’s find out how the Hebrews migrated to

Most of what we know about the Hebrews, we know from the first five books in the Hebrew Bible

• The Torah

• The Old Testament

In the Torah, God chose Abraham to

be the father of the Hebrew people.

Origins of Hebrews in Canaan:

• God’s words to Abraham expressed a promise of land.

• Abraham was a shepherd living in the city of Ur.

• The book of Genesis tells its readers that God commanded Abraham to move his people to Canaan.

• Around 1800 B.C., Abraham, his family, and his herds made their way to Canaan.

• Abraham and his family moved from Mesopotamia to Canaan to Egypt and back to Canaan

• All the while, their God Yahweh watched over them.

• Unlike other religions at that time, the Hebrews worshipped one God.– Monotheism

• The Hebrews proclaimed the Yahweh was the one and only God.

• In their eyes, Yahweh had power over all people.

– To the Hebrews, God was not a physical being.

• According to the Bible, Yahweh looked after the Hebrews because they obeyed and listened to the orders he gave Abraham.

– No sacrifices

– No gifts

– No ritual ceremonies

*The covenant: Mutual promise between God and Abraham

• The Hebrews migrated to Egypt because a drought in Canaan threatened a massive famine.

• At first, the Hebrews were given places of honor in the Egyptian Kingdom.

• Later, however, they were forced into slavery.

• The Hebrews fled Egypt between 1300-1200 B.C.• The event is known as the Exodus• It’s celebrated every year during the festival of Passover

• The Torah says the man who led the escape was a man named Moses.

• Moses was the adopted son of an Egyptian princess, but he did not forget his Hebrew roots.

• When God commanded Moses to move the Hebrews out of Egypt, he followed his command.

– A new covenant was born.

• During their escape from Egypt, Moses and the Hebrews stopped on Sinai mountain.

• Moses climbed the mountain to talk to God.

• When he came down, he had two stone tablets

– The Ten Commandments

• The Ten Commandments became the basis for the civil and religious laws of Judaism

• The Hebrew people believed that these new laws created a new covenant between God and the Hebrew people.

– God promised to protect the Hebrew people

– The Hebrews promised to follow the ten Commandments.

The Torah reads that the Hebrews wandered the Sinai Desert for forty years

• After the death of Moses, the Hebrew people returned to Canaan where Abraham lived.

• The Hebrews evolved from a nomadic society to a settled civilization.

• The Hebrews in Canaan were twelve sparsely separated tribes.

• Occasionally the tribes would band together and fight against the Philistines

• Another civilization in Canaan

• Eventually there was one large tribe left Came to be known as The Jews– Their religion was transformed into Judaism

• 1020 to 922 B.C., the Hebrews united under three kings. – Saul

– David

– Solomon

*The new Kingdom was called Israel.

Solomon

Saul

David

• Saul was the first of the three Kings

• Became popular after he drove the Philistines from the central hills of Palestine

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• David was the son-in-law of Saul

• Extremely popular because he united the Jewish tribes

• Established Jerusalem as the capital city

• About 962 B.C., David was succeeded by Solomon.

• Solomon was the mightiest of the Hebrew Kings – Established a trading empire with the Phoenicians

– Built a great temple in Jerusalem which housed the Ten Commandment tablets

• The Temple was not large but inner walls were gold with bronze pillars were outside Displayed wealth

• Solomon’s building project called for high taxes and forced labor.

• The distress ultimately caused a split amongst the Jews.

• By 922 B.C., there were two Jewish empires.– The North: Israel

– The South: Judah

The next two hundred years, the two kingdoms of Israel were kind of confusing.

• Sometimes they fought each other.

• Sometimes they joined forces to fight others.

• In 738 B.C., both Kingdoms began paying tributes to more power Assyrians

– Tributes are peace payments.

• 725 B.C., the Assyrians began relentless sieges of the two Jewish Kingdoms.

• By 722 B.C., Israel had fallen.

• Judah resisted for another 150 years but eventually fell.

• The destruction of Judah came by the hands of the Babylonians

– Attack led by King Nebuchadnezzar

– Solomon’s temple was destroyed.

• After the success of the Babylonian attacks, many of the Jews were exiled to Babylon.

• During their exile, the bible describes that the prophet Ezekiel urged his people to keep their religion alive in the foreign land.

Ezekiel

• In 539 B.C., the Persian King Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon.

• Cyrus allowed 40,000 exiles to return to Jerusalem and they rebuilt the temple.

• In 445 B.C., the Walls of Jerusalem were built.

• Soon, however, other empires dominated the region.

• First the Persians, then the Greeks, and then the Romans

• These empires would all take control of Palestine.